View Single Post
Old 27th Jan 2019, 12:39 pm   #4
Semir_DE
Tetrode
 
Semir_DE's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2019
Location: Heusenstamm, (Near Frankfurt am Main), Germany.
Posts: 59
Default Re: Sync Signal Generator for 441 Line TV System

Hi Frank,

following Terry's suggestion I checked out your Hedgehog project and must say I am amazed of how nice and versatile this converter is! I also find it very kind of you that you made it open source, so many enthusiasts can benefit from your knowledge and design.

One of my problems has always been that I never really bothered with learning programming languages, most of my projects have been purely hardware based. As a matter of fact the sync generator I introduced here was first built with CMOS 40xx series ICs but the daunting thought of making a PCB for 12+ ICs got me into thinking about the PLDs...

As of today I am able to program a little in CUPL and I am also able to use the Arduino development environment but I have not yet worked with a more advanced HDL. I realize, however, that eventually mastering such a language would allow me to create much more complex projects from the comfort of my couch just using a laptop, so I am looking into it. I have John Wakerly's book on digital design which gives some example code in VHDL and I also downloaded and installed ispLEVER from Lattice. Since I have a day job in sales and product management I can not devote as much time as I would like to my hobbies but will try anyway...

I would like to get a better idea your project and the development environment you used to create the code for the FPGA. Is the VHDL software available free of charge? What kind of OS do I need to run it? I am running Linux on my laptop with windows XP in a virtual machine for the programs that require windows.

I will continue my mostly hardware based project, however, just to get some experience with conversions and will also make a modulator for it using the SA612 as a multiplier for vision and audio. I will post the advances in my project here as it progresses.

Best

Semir
Semir_DE is offline